The London Hospital Medical College moved to this site in 1854. The building was rebuilt and enlarged in 1886–7 and 1898–9 by Rowland Plumbe

The Royal London Hospital Medical CollegeContributed by Survey of London on Jan. 18, 2017

The Royal London Hospital has been associated with teaching since the early
1740s, when physicians and surgeons were permitted to take fee-paying pupils,
along with dressing pupils, who paid an additional fee to dress wounds.1
The first lectures at the hospital took place in 1749 at the instigation of
its founding surgeon, John Harrison. By 1781, a course of lectures on anatomy
and surgery had been established. Despite these advances, pupils were obliged
to attend lectures elsewhere in subjects such as chemistry and Materia
Medica, the study of medicinal substances. Plans to extend teaching at the
hospital were inhibited by a lack of room for lectures. Whilst other hospitals
in the capital with rival courses possessed new lecture theatres, including St
Thomas’s (1775) and Guy’s (1777), lecturers at the London Hospital were
confined to makeshift arrangements, such as teaching in the court room or the
repository.2 The provision of a purpose-built lecture theatre in 1783–5 was
to expand teaching at the London Hospital and elevate its status to that of a
medical school. The institution that later became the London Hospital Medical
College, then part of the University of London in 1900 before it was
assimilated into Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry (Queen
Mary University of London) in 1995, was first based in a purpose-built school
east of the front block, on a site now occupied by the Grocers’ Company’s
Wing.3 In 1854 the college moved to new, larger premises in Turner Street,
which were rebuilt and enlarged in 1886–7 and 1898 to designs by Rowland
Plumbe.

Old Medical College, 1783–5

In 1782 the hospital’s surgeons and physicians petitioned the House Committee
for permission to construct a lecture theatre.4 Represented by surgeon
(Sir) William Blizard and physician Dr James Maddocks, who credited themselves
for managing the ‘executive part’ of the enterprise, the surgical and medical
staff promoted a model for hospital teaching that would combine practical
experience with lectures in a range of subjects in ‘Surgery and Physic’. They
perceived that sound practice relied on theoretical instruction, and that the
hospital offered ‘continual opportunities’ for taught principles to be
demonstrated. The establishment of a medical school at the hospital would
prevent students from travelling elsewhere for lectures and secure a ready
body of trainees to treat urgent cases. It was also reasoned that the scheme
would enhance the charity’s reputation.

The intended lecture theatre was allocated a site at the east end of the front
block with the condition that it would not impinge on the charity’s
resources.5 Despite this financial separation between the charitable
institution and its burgeoning medical school, a building committee of
hospital governors was assembled to monitor its progress. A public
subscription was launched to raise funds for the lecture theatre, which was
expected to cost no more than £600; an initial estimate thought to have been
exceeded significantly.6

Preliminary plans were presented to the committee in Spring 1783. It is not
known whether these designs were produced by an architect, though it is
evident that the medical staff possessed a large degree of autonomy over the
form and layout of the intended building. Initial plans for a warm bath were
postponed in 1783, when it was also decided that only one lecture theatre was
necessary. These adjustments were approved, and the physicians and surgeons
permitted to make arrangements for construction.7 By August, the building
was reported to be at an advanced stage. Despite this progress, the hospital’s
‘new medical and surgical theatre’ did not open as advertised in October 1783.
As an interim measure, the physicians and surgeons were permitted to lecture
in the operating theatre. Work continued into November, when John Langley was
paid for carpentry.8

The formal opening of the medical school took place in October 1785. It was
housed in a single-storey brick building, initially detached from the front
block of the hospital. Plans and illustrations indicate that its principal
elevation, which overlooked the gated hospital forecourt at the north, was
composed of a doorway flanked by four blind recesses east and west. Skylights
were preferred to windows, most likely to secure well-lit and private teaching
rooms. Its rectangular plan was divided into four main rooms of approximately
equal size and a separate courtyard at the east. This layout provided distinct
spaces for lectures, classes and preparatory work. After his visit to the
hospital in 1787, Jacques Tenon reported that the medical school contained a
top-lit anatomical theatre, with circular tiered seating and four niches. It
was also equipped with a chemical laboratory and, on the other side of a
corridor, an anatomical museum, a dissection room, and an injection room.
Tenon noted that the courtyard was used for maceration, a soaking method used
in anatomical preparations.9

A range of lectures in surgery and medicine was offered at the hospital from
1783. Blizard lectured on anatomy, physiology and surgery, and Maddocks on
‘Physic’. Dr Thomas Healde delivered lectures on Materia Medica and
pharmacy, and Dr John Cooke taught chemistry. A new discipline was introduced
in 1785, when Dr Richard Dennison advertised a midwifery course. The scheme
formed a ‘complete medical school’ based on a university medical faculty,
which lays claim to being the earliest example of its kind established at a
hospital in England.10

After the medical college moved to new premises in 1854, its former building
transferred to hospital use. By the 1860s it had fallen into a state of
dilapidation deemed beyond repair, yet it continued in use to alleviate
hospital overcrowding.11 It was occupied by the Post Mortem and
Pathological Departments, and later contained female isolation wards. Its site
was cleared by 1874 for the construction of the Grocers’ Company’s Wing.

The Garrod Building, Turner Street

Since 1854 the London Hospital Medical College has been based at its present
site on the north-east corner of the junction of Turner Street and Stepney Way
(formerly known as Oxford Street). The building has undergone successive
alterations spurred by a rising volume of students and the need to modernise
teaching facilities. Now named in recognition of esteemed physician Sir
Archibald Garrod, who spent much of his career at St Bartholomew’s Hospital,
the building continues in educational use as part of Barts and the London
School of Medicine and Dentistry.12

The Garrod Building, photographed in November 2015

By 1852 plans were in consideration to transfer teaching from the old medical
college to new, larger premises to accommodate an increasing student body.
Initial designs by Alfred Richardson Mason, hospital surveyor, were rejected
as too costly.13 The new medical college was built to an amended design in
1853–4 by George Myers. It was proclaimed to be ‘the most convenient,
salubrious and handsome school in the Metropolis’.14 On the ground floor
the college’s plan was split roughly into two parts, west and east. The west
range was divided by an axial corridor extending from the college’s principal
entrance in Turner Street to the east range. A museum and anatomical lecture
theatre lay north of the corridor and to the south a labyrinthine arrangement
of rooms included laboratories and a chemical lecture theatre. Beyond a north-
south corridor, the east range comprised a dissecting room and a number of
smaller rooms. Despite enlarged facilities and multiple lecture theatres, the
new building failed to accommodate the rising volume of students attracted by
the college’s growing reputation. Initial steps to reduce cramped conditions
were taken c.1870, with a north extension formed of a museum, a reading
room, and a microscopy laboratory.15 This was followed in 1879 with a
three-storey addition built by Perry & Co., consisting of an additional
reading room and extensions to the dissecting room and laboratories.16

By 1884 it was apparent that a long-term solution to overcrowding in the
medical college was required.17 A building committee was entrusted with
overseeing a significant enlargement, and Rowland Plumbe appointed as
architect. The corner stone of the extension was laid on the principal
elevation of the college on 9 March 1886. Construction by W. Goodman of
Hartham Works, Holloway, continued until the following year, overseen by the
hospital’s surveyor.18 The building was opened formally in May 1887 by the
Prince and Princess of Wales.19 Its completion secured a large medical
college that accommodated the vast range of subjects offered on its four-year
course, which saw students rotate between lectures in medicine, surgery,
anatomy and chemistry to specialist areas such as forensic medicine and
midwifery. In addition to lectures, classes and anatomical demonstrations,
pupils received tuition in the wards and gained experience by working as
clerks and surgical dressers in the hospital.20

The London Hospital Medical College in 1887, looking north-east (Historic
England Archive)

This extensive remodelling of the college left the chemical lecture theatre,
laboratories and intersecting corridors enveloped by new spaces. The chemical
theatre continued to host lectures during construction works, though it was
extended by the provision of new laboratories at the south.21 The
restrained, classically proportioned façade of the chemical laboratories
overlooking Oxford Street appeared in marked contrast to the taller adjoining
building. These laboratories were rebuilt in 1898 (see below). The medical
college possesses a robust exterior composed of yellow bricks with red brick
dressings. Its principal elevation facing Turner Street is dignified by a
stout Doric porch capped by a thick balustrade, its central semi-circular
headed entrance flanked by pilasters with red sandstone dressings and fluted
bases. The height of the building is accentuated by a succession of paired
Doric pilasters, which originally rose to a central bell-cote flanked by
pediments. Its workmanlike exterior is divided horizontally by moulded string
courses and punctuated by large windows on the lower floors, rising to smaller
windows at the top.

View of the main staircase of the former London Hospital Medical College,
photographed by Derek Kendall in 2017

The main entrance of the college leads through a vestibule into a top-lit open
well staircase with Doric columns culminating in arcaded galleries adorned by
Ionic pilasters. On the ground floor, a lecture theatre with tiered seating is
positioned north-west of the staircase, once adjacent to a dining room and a
reading room. The east end of the ground floor contains a dignified and
spacious double-height library, lit by tall windows and a bay window at the
east, originally crowned by a pediment bearing a finial. In the north-east
corner of the room, a wrought-iron spiral staircase ascends to a gallery.
Extravagant decoration in the library, including an elaborate plastered
ceiling by Jackson and Sons, was financed by donations from the hospital’s
medical staff and lecturers.22

View of the
Library, photographed by Derek Kendall in 2017

At the south-west corner of the ground floor, a narrow staircase provides
access to offices and laboratories, including a second-floor mezzanine. The
first floor of the college contains a double-height anatomical museum,
originally with an L-plan curving around the north-west corner of the
building. It was a brightly lit, galleried room populated by anatomical
specimens, with cabinet-lined walls and a lower level crowded with exhibits.
The second floor comprised a top-lit dissecting room, a lecture theatre and
laboratories for physiology, pathology and biology.23 Despite successive
alterations, the building has retained its ornate library, impressive
staircase and anatomical lecture theatre, along with several doorcases adorned
with carved brackets and broken pediments.

The London Hospital Medical College depicted in The Illustrated London News
on 3 May 1887 (Historic England)

The medical college was a focus for further alterations in 1898, with the
construction of specialised facilities for bacteriology and biology. The
chemical theatre and laboratories at the south, which had survived the
college’s earlier remodelling, were replaced by a new four-storey block
designed by Plumbe. The south elevation of the earlier building was replaced
by an austere five-bay façade, its upper storeys raised above a loggia over a
basement light well with scrolled columns resting on sturdy brick bases.
Composed of large evenly spaced windows designed to admit light into teaching
rooms, the façade is surmounted by a pediment bearing a red brick cartouche
inscribed with its date. Construction was carried out by the Limehouse
builders Harris & Wardrop.24

The south elevation of the Garrod Building, photographed in December 2016

According to Lord Knutsford, Chairman of the House Committee, this extension
secured London’s ‘most perfectly equipped department’ for bacteriological
research.25 Its basement contained a public health department with a
museum, a lecturers’ room, classrooms and a photographic dark room. There was
a biological laboratory on the ground floor in place of the old chemical
theatre and laboratories, which moved to new first-floor rooms with a
physiological chemical laboratory. The second floor included an anatomy
classroom, a physics laboratory and an additional chemical laboratory, along
with a laboratory, theatre and a professor’s room for physiology. A
bacteriological department, with research laboratories, classrooms and a
sterilising room, was located on the third floor.26

The medical college was enlarged again in 1899 by Harris & Wardrop, with a
north extension to the ground-floor dining and reading rooms and the provision
of a small research laboratory on the roof. A fives court was also built
north-west of the college, adjacent to Turner Street. A more substantial
three-storey extension followed in 1909, constructed by Harris & Wardrop
to designs by the hospital’s surveyor Joseph George Oatley, a former assistant
of Plumbe.27 By this time, a subway connected the college with the
Outpatients Department west of Turner Street. This range extends along the
north side of the college in a utilitarian style, with a train of large
windows on each elevation to ensure brightly lit teaching rooms. The north
parapet bears two shaped gables adorned with inscribed brick cartouches. Its
rectangular plan provided an extension to the ground-floor dining room and two
spacious laboratories on the first and second floors, including a top-lit
physiological laboratory.

The medical college has since been modernised and extended with the insertion
of partitions to form seminar rooms and offices, and various roof
extensions.28 The college’s east elevation has been altered by the
insertion of first-floor windows in place of raised brick panels. In 1912 the
frieze above its east entrance was inscribed with the motto, Amara Lento
Tempera Risu; a quotation from Horace admired by Professor William Wright,
long-serving College Dean. His favourite translation is thought to have been,
‘Temper bitter things with a quiet smile’.29

RLHA, RLHLH/X/51; Tenon; Thomas Pole, The Anatomical Illustrator or an
Illustration of the Modern and Most Approved Methods of Preparing and
Preserving the Different Parts of the Human Body (online:
https://archive.org/details/anatomicalinstru00pole), 1790. ↩